Preen Line

All the talk this season has been about punk, but at Preen Line, the diffusion range from Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi, the muse of the moment is Debbie Harry, the queen of New Wave. Either way, though, the callbacks were on the subtle side. There's no risk of looking retro in Preen Line. On the contrary, the collection's little black shearling jacket, oversize patchworked knits, and silk, print T-shirt dresses look very now. That's one reason this contemporary-priced offshoot of the British label does well. Here's another: Thornton and Bregazzi have imbued the clothes with a lot of function. One shearling, for example, is reversible, and others feature removable collars. For all that polish, though, they haven't forgotten the romance. You couldn't exactly call their bold digital floral print raw, but it was lifted from an old scrap of fabric they picked up on the Portobello Road.